MIND MAPS
When I thought of a sensory experience, a concert came to mind. This one felt the easiest to do and lent itself pretty easily to abstraction because it’s such an overwhelming sensory experience, especially light and sound. I thought it would be really cool to do the project on, but I didn’t have a strong emotional attachment to it.
On the other hand, I was too emotionally attached to this one. I volunteer at my local humane society and spend a lot of time building relationships with dogs, but this one was just special. Her name was Ellie, and she was one of my favorite dogs in the whole world; we just clicked for some reason. Unfortunately, her story had a sad ending and I knew trying to do a project on her during the stress of finals season would just be too much for me.
This one was the sweet spot. A couple summers ago, I got to go to Europe and stayed in Antibes, France for a week. It was my second time being out of the country (the first was Scotland when I was four, so it really doesn’t even count) and I was awestruck at this place. It is my favorite place in the world and I hope I can visit again someday. In the mornings, there was a farmers market in this outdoor pavilion with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and bread.
I edited and refined my mind map for the outdoor market and turned it into this:
ITERATE
I crossed out a few more items once I began to iterate as well because they didn’t feel as important to the experience that I wanted to illustrate. Noted by the thumbnails are the elements & principles used. I made the notes (light purple/blue) during our group sharing; we agreed for the most part on the most successful iterations (salty, the last one for vibrant colors, combining background chatter and busy, considering using soft & fuzzy and separated/enveloped in my own space as effects rather than graphics). I didn’t get a ton of feedback, which is usually the case when we do mini critiques with our table groups, maybe because we see and talk about each other’s work every day or because we are afraid to criticize the people we are closer with. I know it can be more time-consuming and less practical sometimes, but I really get a lot more out of critiques when we switch tables and get more perspectives.
IDEATE
Maddie suggested that I try combining my peaceful and salty iterations, so I played with this by making them flow into each other. I liked the concept, but it just turned out kind of messy. What I really liked about this one was the background texture I created using the watercolor brush. I also included an iteration of vibrant colors.
In this one, I wanted to play around with the color circles, using a Van Gogh style. I also incorporated emphasis from my enveloped in my own space iterations.
This is the one I decided to go with. I really liked how all the pieces fit together, and the colors worked really well together to create the warm, uplifting mood I intended.
Lazy, meandering stroll: this iteration uses line to illustrate the idea of slowly wandering around the market with no intention, just looking and taking it all in. In the graphic, I repeated this squiggly line over itself a few times, the same way I went through the market multiple times. The places where the lines get sort of squeezed together represent slowing down or stopping in a certain place.
Busy/background chatter: 
The market was a very busy place with lots of other people walking around and background chatter; I used proximity to communicate this. However, the busyness only takes up part of the graphic because most of it was drowned out and it wasn’t overwhelming at all. It was noticeable at times, but mostly I was in my own bubble, as illustrated by the next iteration.
Separated/enveloped in my own space: I used line to create shape and emphasis in this iteration. The idea behind this was to show the focus of my experience, what was right in front of me, and not all of the other things going on at the same time.
Vibrant colors: The market was filled with all kinds of bright colors, and I wanted to illustrate this with many different focal points. I ended up creating circular, organic shapes since most of the color came from organic fruits and vegetables.
MOUNTING & CONSTRUCTING
I roughly traced some of the circles on Bristol paper and cut them out, then painted them with watercolor. When they dried, the paper curled, so I placed them between two pieces of foam board with a heavy object on top to try to flatten them out, which helped a little. The next day I stacked them using foam and tacky glue and glued them onto the poster. I used different amounts of foam to stack them in order to vary the heights. I also glued a piece of twine on top of the right-most squiggly line to add texture and make the overlapping lines look more 3D, adding some movement and dimension.
DESIGN STATEMENT
This poster represents walking through an open-air market in the coastal French town of Antibes on a summer morning. Both the outer lines that create the circle and the spattering of dots cut off by the squiggling lines illustrate all of the busyness fading away in the background as you are focused on your own space. The overlapping squiggling lines are representative of a lazy, meandering stroll around the market. Warm yellow brings out a sunny, happy feeling, and soft blue reflects calmness and salty seaside breeze. Both the central yellow circle and the cutout circles are organic and imperfect around the edges to bring in an element of realism; the twine resembles the texture of the burlap that covered the tables. The market was full of colorful fruits and vegetables that competed with each other for attention; this was the focus of the 3D element, because they all stood out but there was no single focal point. Finally, using watercolor makes it feel more home-made and real, like the market (versus a grocery store).